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Many people would consider you very lucky if you haven’t watched Attack on Titan, because you get to see it for the first time. It has been running since 2013. I consider myself lucky in a different sense: I watched the entire thing just at about the same time it was coming to an end. So when I finished watching all episodes from the past 10 years, they released the finale. And it is everything we needed from a finale.

I’m going to refer to a small snippet that is not a spoiler.

A legendary dialog happened between a protagonist (named Armin) and the root of all evil (a character named Zeke):

[ZEKE] 
A long dream, long, long ago,
before anything besides inert matter
existed in this universe
All manner of insignificant things
came into and out of being.
Eventually, something survived.
We call that thing "life."
In the end, the reason life survived
was that it had the ability to multiply.
In order to multiply,
life kept changing form
and adapted to any environment.
And that led to us as we are today.
Growing more numerous,
more widespread, more abundant
In other words, the objective
of living is to multiply.
This sand, the pebbles, the water
none of them attempt to multiply.
However, life is still doing
whatever it can to proliferate.
Considering that death and extinction
run counter to the goal of multiplying,
we are deterred from meeting our end
by the punishment known as fear.

[ARMIN] I haven't given up on anything.
[ZEKE] Why?
[ARMIN] Uh, because..
[ZEKE] To keep multiplying?
Is continuing the species
that important to you?
You could call what's happening right now
the tragedy of life's being ruled by fear.
A calamity of fear brought about
by the meaningless activities of life.

[ZEKE, continues]
Being alive means dying eventually.
The moment before death
might just bring relief.
No longer being driven solely to multiply,
never knowing what
the point of it all is
It might feel like being set free.

[ARMIN, interrupting]
I was racing Eren and Mikasa
racing to the tree on the hill.
Eren started running the moment
after he suggested the race,
and Mikasa deliberately lagged behind him.
Of course, I was last.
But the wind that day was slightly warm,
and it felt so good just running.
The wind stirred up
all the dead leaves.
In that moment, the thought entered my head
that maybe I had been born
to race Mikasa and Eren up this hill.
When I would read inside on rainy days,
when I fed acorns to a squirrel,
and when we walked
around the market together,
I felt the same way.
I had the sense that these insignificant
moments were incredibly precious.
[ZEKE]
Where'd you get that?
[ARMIN]
I found it buried in the sand.
[ZEKE]
Why would that be here?
[ARMIN]
Who can say?
But even though this isn't needed
to multiply or for anything else,
to me, it's an incredibly precious thing.
[ZEKE]
Oh, that's right.
We would just throw the ball,
and catch it, and then throw it again.
Just that. Over and over.
There was no point to it.
But it's as you say.
I would've been happy
just playing catch forever.

Lots of events culminate into this scene – But here’s what’s interesting about it:

When the battle between good & evil seems to be ending whatever is left from humanity, lots of followers on the side of good were losing faith. They didn’t have any resort, and fear was everywhere. It doesn’t matter what the result was, if all what they could sense was constant fear.

Fear takes people alive. There can’t be

REFs from real life

zeke spinal fluid

the walls

the rumbling

23Nov10 | Meaning